PF auth Sides 


OF THE 


Controversy 


BETWEEN THE 


Roman Catholic Church Hierarchy 


AND THE 


Mexican Government 


Reprinted from The New York World of 
Sunday, February 5, 1928. 


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INTRODUCTION 


In pursuance of the policy of placing before the 
people of the United States full information regard- 
ing the controversy between the Roman Catholic 
Church Hierarchy and the Mexican Government, 
I have had reprinted for distribution the statements 
of the Rev. John A. Ryan, D.D. and myself as pub- 
lished by invitation of the editors of The New York 
World in their edition of February 5, 1928. I do 
this because I believe that the people of the United 
States should be put in a position to reach their 
conclusions as to where the truth lies in this con- 
troversy, and intelligent and enduring opinions can 
only be formed when both sides of a question are 
presented to the public. 


ARTURO M. ELIAS, 


Consul General of Mexico in the United States. 


Mr. Elias Gives the Calles Government’s 
Reasons for Its Present Enforcement of 
the Mexican Constitution and Statutes 
as They Affect Observances 


Consul General Arturo M. Elias, author of this article, 
is the ranking officer of the Consular Service of Mexico 
in the United States. He is also the Financial Agent of 
the Mexican Government in New York. He is the author 
of a book entitled “The Mexican People and the Church,” 
which has had a circulation of over 600,000 in the last 
year. 


By Arturo M. Elias 


N the proper sense of the word there is no such 
thing as a “religious question”? in the Repub- 
lic of Mexico. There is a question involving 

the relations of the Roman Catholic Church hier- 
archy and the Government of Mexico, which is an 
entirely different matter. There are no contro- 
versies between the Mexican Government and the 
clergy of other religious beliefs in Mexico. The 
Protestant clergy there have complied with our 
laws. The Roman Catholic clergy refuses to do 
so. Unless this fact is grasped, there can be no 
understanding of the issues growing out of cer- 
tain provisions in the Mexican Constitution and the 
laws on the statute books putting these provisions 
into force. 

In Europe for centuries there was a denial of 
religious liberty. Protestantism was not allowed - 
to function in those states whose Governments 
paid fealty to the Pope of Rome. In England, on 
the contrary, Catholicism was put under the ban 


5 


and Catholics were denied religious liberty, just 
as Protestants were denied it in other countries. 
Another fact which must be grasped if the 
people of the United States are to understand 
the controversy between the Roman Catholic hier- 
archy and the Government of Mexico, is that this 
struggle between the clergy of the Catholic 
Church and the political power in Mexico is a 
century-old struggle and not something which 
started in the Administration of the present Chief 
Executive of Mexico, Plutarco Elias Calles. 


The roots of the controversy lie deep in the 
history of old Spain. Its religious institutions 
were moved bodily to New Spain and impinged 
upon a conquered people. The early attempts of 
the Mexicans to achieve their independence from 
the mother country were fought most bitterly by 
the church hierarchy in Mexico, notwithstanding 
that two noble priests, Fathers Hidalgo and 
Morelos, were two of the chief leaders in the 
revolts from 1810 to 1814. 

Both of these priests were excommunicated by 
the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, delivered 
over to the secular arm and put to death. And 
the hierarchy only championed independence 
from Spain when it feared that the new, and as it 
turned out, ephemeral liberal Government of 
Spain would give its colonies in America certain 
freedom from priestly exactions which the new 
Constitution gave the people of'old Spain. In 
other words, the independence secured by Mexico 
from the Spanish Crown in 1821 was a reactionary 
eames led by militarists and high ecclesias- 
ics. 

The record stands and can neither be written 
nor talked away by the most able of polemicists. 
The Constitution adopted for the Government of 
Mexico when it freed itself from the Spanish 
Crown made the Roman Catholic religion the offi- 


6 


cial religion of the state. Every privilege that the 
church in centuries had taken to itself was con- 
tinued. The clergy remained above the civil law. 

During the years between 1821 and 1857, when 
the great battle between church and state was 
fought, resulting in the famous Constitution of 
’57, with its provisions aimed at taking away the 
privileges of the Roman Catholic Church hier- 
archy, the ecclesiastics of Mexico fought always 
on the side of political reaction. This is the rec- 
ord and not a matter of opinion. 

In 1883, when Gomez Farias, in power for just 
a little time, assailed the exemption of the clergy 
from the jurisdiction of the civil courts, the hier- 
archy threw all its influence against him, made 
Santa Ana Dictator, and had a new Constitution 
fashioned in 1836 which reduced popular repre- 
sentation and centralized the powers of govern- 
ment. 

Again in 1843 another Constitution was adopted 
which retained all the privileges of the clergy, and 
was even more anti-liberal. As the Encyclopedia 
Britannica expresses it: “It was in some respects 
more anti-liberal than that of 1836.” 

The nineteenth century, however, ushered in 
many liberal doctrines and the educated class in 
Mexico could not remain untouched by the spirit 
of intellectual freedom that was gathering new 
strength as the years went by. 


“Liberal Doctrines’? Were Ushered In 


It was at this period that the great figure of 
Benito Juarez, the Nemesis of the Roman Catholic 
Church hierarchy in Mexico, led the Liberal forces 
in the fashioning of a new Constitution which 
would at least in some degree express the desire 
of the Mexican people for a larger measure of 
control over their own lives. 

This Constitution, containing as it did provi- 


7 


sions that menaced the immense influence of the 
hierarchy over the daily lives of the people of 
Mexico, aroused the most bitter opposition of the 
clergy and gave birth to an event that has had no 
parallel since on this continent. The Pope of 
Rome, Pius IX., issued a mandate against this 
Constitution and called upon those who were his 
spiritual subjects to disobey the laws of their 
country. 


In all that has been written by the defenders of 
the policies of the Roman Catholic Church hier- 
archy they have been careful to keep from men- 
tioning this remarkable document, which con- 
cludes with the words: ‘Thus we make known to 
the faith in Mexico and to the Catholic universe 
that we energetically condemn every decree that 
the Mexican Government has enacted against the. 
Catholic religion, against the church and her 
sacred ministers and pastors, against her laws, 
rights and property, and also against the authority 
of the Holy See. We raise our pontifical voice 
with apostolic freedom before you to condemn, 
reprove and declare null, void and without any 
value the said decrees, and all others which have 
been enacted by the civil authorities in such con- 
tempt of the ecclesiastical authority of this Holy 
See, and with such injury to the religion, to the 
sacred pastors and illustrious men.” 


Order Issued by Mexican Archbishop 


Those championing the tactics of the Roman 
Catholic hierarchy in Mexico have also been care- 
ful not to publish the fact that the echo of this 
mandate of the Papacy was an order from the 
ruling prelate of Mexico, the Archbishop, that it 
was ‘“‘not lawful to swear allegiance to the Consti- 
tution, because its articles were contrary to the 
institution, doctrine and rites of the Catholic 
Church.” 


8 


Also that the Roman Catholic organ, La Socie- 
dad, said in its issue of Dec. 14, 1858, “Our hap- 
piness and the safety of our Catholic religion 
depend upon our close union and obedience to the 
Vatican and on our alliance with the Catholic na- 
tions of Europe. To the Catholic European world 
it will be by no means convenient that the Cath- 
olic world of America degenerate into Protestant- 
ism.” 

The proceedings of the convention which fash- 
ioned the 1857 Constitution are a matter of record 
and the happenings there have also found little, if 
any, publicity where a discussion has been en- 
gaged in regarding the differences between the 
Mexican Government and the Roman Catholic 
Church hierarchy. It would be the same as en- 
gaging in a discussion the Constitution of the 
United States without examining the proceedings 
of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. 

If one will turn to the records for July 30, 1856, 
he will find an event recorded indicative of the 
-manner in which the hierarchy and its followers 
were struggling against this attempt to liberalize 
the Mexican Government. The day before Fran- 
cisco Zarco had made a very exhaustive and 
eloquent address on religious liberty. In this 
speech he had indicted the Catholic hierarchy for 
its intolerance. 

When the session of July 30 was opened it was 
found that the galleries were packed with follow- 
ers of the clergy and they threw down upon the 
heads of the delegates paper broadsides bearing 
the printed words ‘‘Long live the Roman Pontiff 
and the clergy—tThe people do not want tolerance 
—Death to the enemies of the Catholic religion.” 

The records show that this congress represented 
the growing liberal sentiment of Mexico. It was 
not in any sense a convention at which what have 
been named “free thinkers” were in control. The 


9 


records show that the members were not in any 
sense opposed to religion. The majority of them 
were merely standing for the right of every one to 
worship God according to the dictates of his or 
her conscience. 

The majority have been brought up in the 
Catholic faith. It was not this faith that they 
opposed, but solely the special privileges given to 
those in control of the machinery of the church. 
The outcome of their proceedings shows that they 
recognized the fact that the only way to secure 
larger political, intellectual and spiritual freedom 
for the Mexican people was to abolish the special 
privileges that the priestly class had usurped. It 
is very significant that the new Constitution began 
with the sentence, ‘In the name of God, and by 
the authority of the Mexican people.” There was 
no denial of the claims of religion but only a denial 
of the rights of the Roman Catholic Church hier- 
archy to be recognized as the only representative 
of God in this world. 


It is naturally very difficult for a citizen of the 
United States to understand why certain pro- 
visions dealing with the church were put in the 
Constitution of 1857 and the reform laws of 1859, 
reiterated and amplified in 1874. The United 
States has never had such an institution as the 
Holy Inquisition, which was not abolished in 
Mexico until the early days of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, and out of such spirit of intolerance grew all 
the iniquity of the hierarchy which the records 
show continued to be practiced, even after the 
Holy Inquisition was abolished. 

In order to sense the spirit which actuated most 
of the delegates who fashioned the Constitution of 
1857 one must bear in mind that their fathers had 
felt the actual tyrannical clutch of the clergy 
through this abominable institution during every 
day of their lives. 


10 


Every single law in the Constitution affecting 
the hierarchy was in reality placed there by the 
clergy. Had they been content to keep within 
their legitimate spiritual channels, not a single law 
dealing with the church would have ever been 
in the Constitution or placed upon the statute 
books. 


The two volumes covering the proceedings of 
the 1856-57 Constitutional Convention are replete 
with the sentiments of the delegates, all of whom 
had been brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. 
It is impossible in the contracted space of a news- 
paper article to give a thoroughly proportioned 
picture of this convention. But it is possible to 
quote just a short portion of the speech of Guiller- 
mo Prieto, a man of great spirituality and pos- 
sessed of the highest tenets of honor. He was 
Finance Minister in the Juarez Administration and 
refused to accept the fees provided by the law for 
the restitution of church property to the nation, on 
the grounds that he had had a part in making 
these laws. 


I quote part of Prieto’s speech for another rea- 
son—the hierarchy of that day made the same 
charge that the hierarchy of to-day makes—that 
religion was being persecuted. To this Prieto 
replied: ‘The Liberal Party, the persecutors of 
Christianity! Do you not think the Liberal Party 
knows that the spirit of Christianity brought lib- 
erty to the world? ‘The party of democracy op- 
posed to Christian reason! That, gentlemen, 
would be to commit suicide, and in parties as in 
men, the first and most powerful instinct is the in- 
stinct of self preservation. The party of fraternity 
to deny or oppose the religion which says: ‘All 
men are brothers’ and ‘Love ye one another!’ This 
would be much more than insanity. It would be 
impossible.” 


11 


Would Not Do Away With Cross 


“The Liberal Party is the party of the dispos- 
sessed, of the sorrowful, of the oppressed ; that 
is to say, it is the party of the people. Think you 
then that it wishes to do away with the Cross, the 
symbol of all consolation, the emblem of our dear- 
est hopes, the sign of the revindication of the 
most sacred rights of man? No—a thousand 
times No!” 

Guillermo Prieto claimed that it was the hier- 
archy who had betrayed the pure teachings of the 
Christ, and that in doing so they had, “lied to the 
God invoked by them.” That it was the hierarchy 
who had “calumniated progress and stabbed in 
the back those civilizing tendencies which had 
been the means of revealing the venality of those 
who insisted upon imposing upon the world their 
arbitrary interpretation of Christianity.” Speech 
after speech was made by the delegates contain- 
ing similar sentiments, and it would be as foolish 
to state that the laws involving the relations of the 
Roman Catholic Church to the Government of 
Mexico were made by irreligious men as it would 
be to say that Luther’s opposition to the Papacy 
had its chief motivation in Luther’s opposition to 
religion. 


The United States was fortunate indeed to have 
started its great career without an ever-over- 
shadowing spiritual despotism, without an estab- 
lished church and with a firm determination never 
to have one. So vital did the fathers of your 
Republic consider freedom from clerical domina- 
tion that their first amendment to their Constitu- 
tion, adopted just as soon as the Government was 
formed, provided for absolute freedom in religious 
matters. 


On the contrary, the first Constitution adopted 
by Mexico provided definitely for religious in- 


12 


tolerance, and forbade the teaching of any other 
religion save Roman Catholicism. 


Unless the background which I have sketched 
here is understood there can be no grasp of the 
questions in dispute at the present time between 
the Mexican Government and the church hier- 
archy. That the differences between this hier- 
archy were not acute during the long dictatorship 
of Porfirio Diaz was due solely to the fact that 
Diaz practically held many of the laws in abey- 
ance or winked at their violation. 


Charges Hierarchy Helped to Keep The Common 
People in Subjection 


In return for this the hierarchy helped keep 
the people in subjection to his rule and protected 
the most cruel exploitation to which the common 
people of Mexico had been subjected since Cortez 
crushed the Aztec dynasty. With the breaking 
out of the great revolution, led by the lamented 
Francesco Madero in 1910, the scene rapidly 
changed and as the new social program, looking 
to the improvement of the physical and, there- 
fore, the intellectual and spiritual condition of 
the Mexican people, was articulated, at least as 
a hope, into the Constitution of 1917, the hier- 
archy rallied all its forces, not only in Mexico, 
but throughout the world, to prevent succeeding 
Governments from carrying out the provisions 
dealing with the clergy. 


For two years now the spokesmen of the Roman 
Catholic hierarchy here have been actively de- 
fending its case before the American people and 
have assumed for them the most paradoxical po- 
sition of trying to rally the people of the United 
States to the cause of what the hierarchy has 
chosen to term “religious liberty.” . It is a strange 
cry to come from such quarters. It is, therefore, 


13 


not surprising that Bishop Cannon of the Meth- 
odist Church, who through years of activity in 
Latin-American countries had suffered much from 
the intolerance of the Catholic hierarchy, should 
have in a public statement sternly rebuked the 
spokesmen of the church here for having for one 
moment, in view of their record, posed as the 
champions of “religious liberty,” which history 
shows they have denied in almost every country 
where they have been in control. 


The spokesmen of the church hierarchy have 
told the American public that they cannot obey 
the present laws dealing with the control of the 
hierarchy in the Mexican Constitution. They 
have sought to create the impression that these 
laws are something new impinged on the Mexican 
people by the Calles Administration, when as a 
matter of fact most of them are nearly seventy 
years old. The historical record shows that the 
hierarchy has fought all the laws of Mexico when- 
ever the Government has attempted to curb its 
power. One does not have to go to historians 
such as Bancroft or to articles in various encyclo- 
paedias to find this out. The records the hier- 
archy itself has kept proves the truth of this state- 
ment conclusively. 


The Roman Catholic Church hierarchy brought 
about several revolts in the first-quarter of a cen- 
tury after Independence. They precipitated a - 
most terrible three years’ civil war after the 1857 
Constitution. On the record, openly and without 
any evidence of shame, they brought about foreign 
intervention and with French bayonets lifted Max- 
imilian, the scion of the Catholic Austrian House 
of Hapsburg, to a throne to which he had no more 
title than the ex-Emperor William Hohenzollern 


has to the Emperorship of the United States of 
America. 


14 


Charges Intrigue In France 


It is an historical fact that the hierarchy did not 
merely intrigue in Mexico to bring about the 
usurpation, but that Archbishop La Bastida went 
to France, intrigued with Napoleon III and brought 
the French Army to engage in an organized rape 
of the liberties of the Mexican people. Maximil- 
ian fell and the church saved what it could out 
of the wreck of its hopes by clever intriguing 
throughout the long reign of thirty-three years of 
Porfirio Diaz, to nullify existing laws which that 
ruler, despite his absolute power, did not dare to 
have legally abrogated. 

The hierarchy acted as Diaz’s spiritual police 
force, with the result that the rich grew richer 
and the poor grew poorer, with illiteracy, the 
mother of ignorance, stalking through the land. 
When Diaz fell there were about 600 rural 
schools in the Republic of Mexico and 90 per cent 
illiteracy. To-day, in spite of the great financial 
difficulties caused by ten years of devastating civil 
war, there are over 4,000 rural schools supported 
solely by the Federal Government. And in one 
year, during the Administrations of Presidents 
Obregon and Calles, over five times as much 
money has been spent on the public schools as 
was spent in any year of the Diaz Administration 
when the Mexican Treasury was bulging with 
money. 

Present-day Mexico, out of its very poverty, has 
decreased the illiteracy of the people from 90 
per cent to 63 per cent, and each year the amount 
of illiteracy goes down. This is in sharp contrast 
to what took place during the Diaz Administra- 
tion when the church was the dominant power in 
educational matters. 

The present Constitution is far from being radi- 
cal in respect to the hierarchy. On the contrary, 
it is highly conservative. It reiterates provisions 


15 


many years old and adds a few new ones which 
were put there because of certain tactics on the 
part of the church hierarchy in these more mod- 
ern times. It is the provision that all members 
of the clergy must register, just the same as mem- 
bers of all other professions, which brought the 
present contest between the hierarchy and the 
Mexican Government to focus. To conduct ser- 
vices and carry on their activities, it was only 
necessary for the priest to register. The church 
hierarchy ordered the clergy to refuse to register, 
thereby declaring a strike against the Constitution 
and the laws growing out of it. 


Insists Calles Government Has Not Locked Priests 
Out of the Churches 


It is unqualifiedly false that the Government 
locked the priests out of the churches. The clergy 
refused to give the people the spiritual ministra- 
tions due them unless the Government would 
nullify this registration provision. To-day, with 
the exception of the great Cathedral in Mexico 
City, which contains millions of value in art treas- 
ures and which has been closed to protect these 
almost priceless objects, the people go daily into 
all of the thousands of churches as freely as they 
do in the United States. As the priests will not 
perform their spiritual duties, volunteers in the 
congregation read the services and the people 
make the responses. 

Many of the most bitter statements now being 
made by the hierarchy are doubtless due to the 
fact that they have full knowledge that in the vast 
majority of cases the people have become happier 
over the present situation as they have learned 
that they can worship without paying most ex- 
orbitantly for the privilege, as they did in the 
past. There is not only full religious liberty in 
Mexico now but there is something the people 
there never have had before, “free worship.” 


16 


Threats Not Confined To Lay Spokesmen 


In the past, from the cradle to the grave, the 
tax gatherers of the church hierarchy stood with 
outstretched hands and took from the poverty of 
the Mexican poor millions of riches, actually in- 
crusting some of the churches with gold, while 
the people, like Lazarus of old, were crying for 
bread. 

This is an historical fact. The church 
through the centuries became the largest own- 
ers of the productive wealth of Mexico, it 
was this wealth, pressed from the agony 
of the people, that in 1857 our forefathers 
tried to have the church hierarchy make restitu- 
tion for by returning at least part of it to the 
source from which it had been filched. This is 
the great crime of the Mexican Government in 
the eyes of the church hierarchy, and it is a crime 
to which we who have refused to be sunk in the 
mire of ignorance proudly plead “guilty.” 

It is of sinister significance that hardly a spokes- 
man for the church hierarchy in this country can 
either speak or write on the present controversy 
dealing with the Roman Catholic Church in Mex- 
ico unless there are veiled threats of revolution in 
behalf of the demands of the clergy. The news- 
papers themselves constantly give evidence of the 
abortive attempts that have taken place in the 
last year and a half, that is, since the attempt to 
enforce the provisions of the Constitution, and 
these veiled threats are not confined to the lay- 
men spokesmen of the church in this country. 

Archbishop Curley of Baltimore, in the early 
days of the present controversy, was just as trucu- 
lent in his utterances as Judge Alfred J. Talley, 
the head of one of the leading lay associations of 
the Catholic Church in the United States. 

Judge Talley indicted President Coolidge and 


17 


Secretary Kellogg as having failed to bring pres- 
sure on Mexico to prevent the carrying out of the 
mandates of our Constitution. The learned Judge 
demanded, to quote his own words, “that the 
United States withdraw its recognition from Mex- 
ico and brand her as an outlaw among nations.” 
But far more important of all these utterances was 
the demand of Judge Talley, as spokesman for 
the “Society for the Protection of Republican 
Rights in Mexico,” that the Government of the 
United States should lift the arms embargo be- 
tween the two countries. I can only repeat here 
what I said then regarding this remarkable de- 
mand on the part of one speaking in the name of 
religion. ‘Does Judge Talley want to bring about 
another St. Bartholomew’s night in Mexico? Is 
it his desire to bring about another religious war 
similar to those which bathed Europe in blood 
during the middle ages?”’ 

And these words of mine, as events proved, 
were, unfortunately for my country, prophetic. 
For while there was no lifting of the arms em- 
bargo, instruments of murder did get to small 
fanatical groups in some of the Mexican states 
with the result of the maiming and killing many in- 
nocent people. One only has to remember the ter- 
rible event of the wrecked train in Guadalajara, 
where scores of innocent people, including women 
and children, were killed and maimed to the blas- 
phemous cry of ‘‘Long Live Christ the King”’ on the 
part of those who did the wrecking and murder- 
ing. And most shameful to tell, two priests were 
among the attackers, their presence being attested 
by Catholic laymen of Mexico City who were on 
the wrecked train. 


Protestant Clergymen Are Satisfiied And Obey 
the Laws, He Declares 


But the most telling evidence, to prove that 
there is no “‘religious” controversy at present but 


18 


merely a situation of the hierarchy’s own making, 
is the fact that all of the Protestant denominations 
in Mexico have accepted the new regulations in 
a most law-abiding spirit. What little friction 
there was in the beginning, which was perfectly 
natural in the putting of new laws into effect, soon 
ceased and there is now no misunderstanding be- 
tween the Protestant clergymen in Mexico and 
the Mexican Government or people. 


The Protestant clergy has seemingly under- 
stood its legitimate mission, and, understanding 
this, it is engaged in co-operating with the Gov- 
ernment, in place of trying to undermine it. The 
Protestant clergy is not making war on our public 
schools, as the Catholic hierarchy has and is to- 
day doing. It is not opposing the legitimate ac- 
tivities of organized labor in forming effective 
trade unions, as the church hierarchy has. In 
short, the Protestant clergymen confine them- 
selves to religion in the true sense of the word; 
to the promoting of the spiritual and moral wel- 
fare of their flock and an inculcating of good 
habits and customs. 


This record of the Protestant clergy has not 
kept them from being most bitterly attacked by 
the spokesmen for the hierarchy. In the midst 
of the last revolution, that is about the year 1915, 
Father Kelly, now the Catholic Bishop of Omaha, 
was the chief spokesman for the Catholic hier- 
archy of Mexico in this country. He wrote a book 
which was published with the imprint of the Cath- 
olic Church Extension Society, in which he 
charged that the principal work of the Protestant 
clergy in Mexico had been to create atheists. In 
this book he also bitterly attacked the attitude of 
the United States toward Victoriana Huerta, the 
assassin of Francesco Madero and the usurper of 
the Presidency of Mexico. Huerta had the sup- 
port of the hierarchy, as they believed he could 


19 


be, depended upon to prevent those provisions in 
the Mexican law dealing with the church from be- 
ing put into effect. 

Let me frankly state that there are very great 
differences between the laws applying to the 
clergy in Mexico and those in the United States. 
But you do not have clericalism here. We have 
had clericalism in Mexico from the very begin- 
ning. There were a few noble souls among the 
church hierarchy who shine out with great bril- 
liancy in the history of Mexico, but they also bring 
into more vivid relief the fact that the church 
hierarchy, like locusts descending upon a people, 
for centuries ate out the very substance of the 
mass of the Mexican population. And again I 
charge, and will gladly bring forward my proof 
that the records of the church itself, from sources 
that are in no sense Protestant but Roman Cath- 
olic, prove this statement to be absolutely true. 

One of the most common protests of the church 
hierarchy is that they cannot tolerate that primary 
schools in Mexico shall be lay schools, that is, 
shall be schools in which doctrinal religion shall 
not be taught. 


Wants Primary Schools Non-Doctrinal 


They take the same position in your country and 
I do not want to involve myself in any issue be- 
tween any groups of people in the United States. 
I am only speaking for my own country.: I state 
most unequivocally that we believe that the pri- 
mary school is not the place to put creeds into 
minds too young to understand these complicated 
metaphysical questions. We believe that if par- 
ents want their children reared in a particular set 
of religious beliefs they have the right and privi- 
lege of teaching these belief’s at home. 


If, after primary school days are over, the par- 
ents want their children to have religious teaching 


20 


and wish to send them to such schools then that 
is for their decision. But those who are now con- 
ducting the affairs of the Republic of Mexico 
declare that so long as they are intrusted with 
this mission every primary school in the republic 
is going to be free from doctrinal religious teach- 
ings. 

This is the cornerstone of the Mexican public 
school system. It is this public school system 
which the hierarchy has fought from the first 
feeble attempts of the Government to erect an 
educational system up to now when the attempts 
on the part of the Government to develop a public 
school system are continuous and virile. 

The hierarchy fought the public school system 
in the old days and they are fighting it in these 
new days. We meet their ‘‘will not’ with an 
equally and even more determined ‘‘we will.’’ 
Since the day Francesco Madero swept into the 
field backed by the millions of the dispossessed of 
Mexico, its Government and its people, throughout 
all the changes, throughout the ebb and tide of 
the revolutionary wave, have determined to bring 
up a new generation of thinking and self-reliant 
people. In this way only can safety and happiness 
for all Mexicans come. 

I also wish to state that we have laws forbidding 
a discussion of politics in religious journals. This 
is an infringement, in the strict sense of the word, 
on the freedom of the press. You have an old 
English proverb, however, that expresses our po- 
sition here. It is to the effect that “It is the crim- 
inal and not the hangman who brings dishonor on 
the house.”’ The hierarchy itself forced us, solely 
in defense of the political freedom of the people, 
to put in this provision against the discussion of 
politics in religious journals. The clergy has 
taken advantage of its hold over the minds of 
those they have deliberately kept in ignorance and 


21 


then attempted to stir them to revolt against the 
various efforts of liberty-loving groups of Mexi- 
cans to bring freedom to all. 

This has compelled the Government in defense 
of the entire community to prevent as far as pos- 
sible such incendiarism before it takes place. The 
discussions by the hierarchy have not been con- 
fined to principles of government, but constant at- 
tempts have been made to arouse fanatical groups 
to acts of violence. When this takes place inno- 
cent victims suffer and those quilty of creating 
these conditions generally escape. The spirit of 
clericalism has compelled the Government to take 
a position which it never would have taken had 
the hierarchy confined itself to its legitimate 
spiritual duty. 

In conclusion I can only say that the Roman 
Catholic hierarchy’s one solution of the difficulties 
in which it finds itself at the present time in the 
Republic of Mexico is to show, like the clergy of 
other beliefs, that it can be law abiding. Having 
shown this, then there will be no difficulty in ar- 
riving at a settlement of all the questions now in 
controversy between the church hierarchy and the 
Mexican Government. 


22 


Father Ryan Gives the Church’s Side of the Re- 
ligious Difficulties That for Months Have 
Been Agitating the Republic South of 
the Rio Grande 


The Rev. John A. Ryan, author of this article, is one 
of the leading Roman Catholic theologians in the United 
States. He is professor of moral theology and industrial 
ethics in the Catholic University at Washington and di- 
rector of the Social Action Department of the National 
Catholic Welfare Council. 


By the Rev. John A. Ryan, D. D. 


N Dec. 6, at Potosi, speaking to an important 
C) group of newspaper men, in the presence 
of the American Ambassador and other 
American citizens, President Calles summed up 
the religious controversy in Mexico. “‘Here are the 
laws and the Constitution. They must be obeyed,” 
the President is quoted as having said. “The so- 
lution of the religious problem is in the hands of 
the Catholics. When they accept the decrees and 
the Constitution, the religious conflict will end.”’ 
The people of Mexico again protest: NON POS- 
SUMUS, we cannot comply. Our consciences can- 
not accept. We have pledged ourselves to labor 
for the amendment of these laws by every means 
permitted to us and we will not lay down the task 
until we have succeeded.” 


The people of the United States are vitally in- 
terested in this controversy. For many months it 
has produced conditions in Mexico which border 
on chaos and anarchy. It is driving many hun- 
dreds, even many thousands, of Mexicans to our 


23 


country until our ability and our willingness to 
receive them are sorely strained. It has reduced 
industry and every social activity in Mexico to 
stagnation and has brought upon the Mexican 
nation an economic depression which threatens to 
make impossible to the Government of Mexico the 
performance of important international engage- 
ments. If unchecked, it threatens to plunge the 
Mexican nation into a morass of dissension and 
strife from which it is not at all certain that the 
Mexican people, left to their own resources, will 
ever be able to extricate themselves. 


Diaz’s Prophecy Is Recalled 


So alarming is the deadlock that serious thinkers 
are beginning to recall the prophecy of Porfirio 
Diaz: “The gates have been opened to anarchy in 
Mexico, and they will never be closed until the 
Stars and Stripes are floating over Chapultepec.” 
As a nation we cannot remain indifferent to a 
controversy which, in the end, threatens to en- 
gulf us. 


The power of public opinion in the United States 
to influence the situation in Mexico is undoubted. 
Both parties to this controversy have again and 
again recognized that power. President Calles, 
himself, has appealed to public opinion in signed 
statements addressed to the American Nation. 
What is more, he has sought to control at the 
source everything which might influence public 
opinion. To that end he has muzzled the press in 
Mexico. To that end he has subjected every infor- 
mation and news-gathering agency to rigid control 
and censorship. To that end he has covered our 
country with agencies of propaganda and invited 
good will missions to Mexico to absorb from him 
views which, in turn, they would disseminate as 
their own. By such methods only confusion could 


24 


be produced. May it not be that the deadlock 
reached in Mexico is directly traceable to that 
confusion? 


The controversy has been bitter. It runs through 
a long period of years. The facts of history have 
been distorted. “Those who have written our 
national history,” declared not long ago a Mexican 
writer of international standing, “‘have too often 
done so in the service of the party in power.” 
Even Americans who discuss Mexico too often re- 
echo the claims and counter-claims of those in- 
volved in the conflict. Interest has usurped the 
role of justice. Prejudice and passion have made 
clear thinking impossible. The real factors of the 
controversy have been lost sight of in a haze of 
misstatement and assumption. 


The Conflict of The Two Leagues 


During the past year there have been organized 
in Mexico two so-called “‘leagues.”’ The first as- 
sumed the name, “Civic Association for the De- 
fense of Liberty in Mexico;” the second, that of 
“Teague for the Defense of the Revolution in Mex- 
ico.’ These names are significant. In the public 
statements by which they were launched, no doubt 
is left as to the character of the controversy of 
which they are the protagonists. A third, “League 
for the Defense of Religious Liberty,’’ was formed 
more than two years ago. This religious defense 
league, exhausting the means it had under the 
laws of Mexico, has placed itself at the head of an 
armed movement. The Civic League was a reac- 
tion. Its founders professed faith in the capacity 
of the Mexican people to develop democratic in- 
stitutions. They did not look for immediate re- 
sults. They were patient. Their program is a pro- 
gram of education. They denounced revolution as 
leading to anarchy and chaos. 


25 


The conflict in which these “leagues” are en- 
gaged deals with liberties and rights which through 
centuries have been wrung by men from unwilling 
Governments and have thus become the accepted 
foundation upon which the political institutions 
of civilized nations stand. On the one side of the 
conflict, a group calling themselves revolutionists, 
organized and in control of the Government, are 
making a desperate effort to engraft upon the 
national life of Mexico a new philosophy of social 
relations. This new philosophy is referred to by 
them as embodying the conquests of the Mexican 
revolution, which cannot end until it is either 
overthrown by force or has succeeded in winning 
for its principles the complete acceptance and 
assured support of the Mexican people. On the 
other side are, if heads are to be counted, a 
majority of the people of Mexico. Not all of these 
are Catholics. They denounce the revolution as 
exotic, alien to the traditions of Mexico and fruit- 
ful of nothing but disaster for the nation. 


Permit me, for the sake of clearness, to state 
briefly some of the principles which stand out as 
fundamental in this so-called philosophy of the 
Mexican revolution. These principles may be 
gleaned from the laws and enforcement measures 
adopted by the revolutionists. 


Encouraged by the recognition given them as 
a result of the A B C Conferences, Carranza and 
Obregon, with their followers, in 1915 conceived 
of themselves as the only legitimate guardians of 
the national life of Mexico and the sole author- 
ized spokesmen of the Mexican nation. They as- 
sumed the name of Constitutionalists and pledged 
themselves to support the laws of Mexico. They 
excommunicated all other Mexicans as unpatriotic 
and unconstitutional. They gave the force of 
law to this exclusion when they decreed that no 


26 


Mexican who had not given material support to 
the Carranza revolution continuously, from the 
overthrow of Madero to the day of the election 
might, either as candidate or elector, participate 
in the Congress summoned to revise the Mexican 
Constitution. 


The most reliable returns show that nearly 30,- 
000 voters took part in the election. This number 
is so near that of the armed followers of Obregon 
and Carranza at the time, that color is given to 
the charge that the delegates who drafted the 
1917 Constitution were, in reality, no more than 
the representatives of the Obregon-Carranza 
party, known sometimes as the Red Flaggers, who 
called themselves the Workers of the World. 


This Congress stood pledged to respect the or- 
ganic laws of the republic. Finding it impossible, 
however, to adjust those laws to its philosophy, it 
scrapped essential provisions of the Constitution, 
especially provisions defining the rights of Mexi- 
cans and placing upon the Mexican Government 
checks restraining it from interfering with the 
free exercise of those rights. 


Important revolutionary groups, the followers of 
Villa, Orozco, Gutierrez, Zapata, and others, as 
well as the great body of noncombatants, liberals 
and Catholics—a majority of the citizens of Mex- 
ico—excluded arbitrarily from the Constituent 
Congress, protested against the acts of that Con- 
gress. The Government of the United States, 
through its Ambassador, protested, even before 
the new Constitution was promulgated, and with- 
drew its protest only when adequate guarantees 
had been given that the rights of men would be 
respected. Foreign companies interested in Mex- 
-ico protested. All protest was silenced by Car- 
ranza, who, pleading for time, gave his word that, 
after all, this Constitution was like others. The 


27 


flames of revolution must first be extinguished. 
Give him but time and freedom to act and in due 
course the objectionable clauses would be erased. 


True to his word, Carranza, with the assistance 
of the President of Congress, restrained the radi- 
cals and no enforcement laws were enacted. He 
even introduced bills bringing the Constitution 
more nearly into line with what had been the basic 
laws of Mexico. His bills did not prosper in the 
Congress, and Carranza died a few months later 
under circumstances that, to say the least, were 
most suspicious. In 1926, nearly ten years later, 
President Calles reminded the Catholics of Mexico 
that those bills are still before the Mexican 
Congress. 


For eleven years the Mexican revolutionists have. 
exhausted their energies in a fruitless effort to 
force the Mexican nation into the mould designed 
for it at Queretaro in 1916. There has been oppo- 
sition. There have been dissensions. There have 
even been rebellions. But these have been within 
the ranks of the party in power. The Mexican 
people, stripped of their property and of every 
resource, denied any participation in national or 
state affairs, have never been in position to make 
effective protest or to exercise organized oppo- 
sition. The revolutionists have worked with a 
free hand. 


Nevertheless, the revolutionists are still conscious 
of the weakness of their position. Their recent 
acts are the acts of men in a panic. Their sole 
reliance is in their armed strength. ‘Our National 
Army,” they declare in their manifesto of May 6, 
1927, “will quickly extinguish the flames lighted 
by fanatics, but this conflict appeals to the spirit, 
to the consciences of men and threatens to bring 
division into our own ranks.” 


Thus, a minority, knowing that it cannot count 
28 


on the moral support or approval of the nation, 
having seized control of armed force, trembles and, 
when a movement like the alleged revolt of Gens. 
Gomez and Serrano breaks out or an attack like 
that on the life of Gen. Obregon is made, they are 
truly in panic and do things that only an over- 
whelming fear could inspire. Only by referring to 
their consciousness of their own weakness can we 
explain the refusal of the National Congress to 
even discuss the petition in which more than a 
million Mexican Catholics prayed for the amend- 
ment of the Constitution. 


All notion of rights which, by their nature, are 
inalienable is wiped out by the 1917 Constitution, 
of which Article 1 reads: ‘In Mexico every man 
shall have the rights which this Constitution 
grants.” 


The philosophy back of this opening clause is 
the philosophy of absolutism. Every other Consti- 
tution of Mexico has presupposed inalienable rights 
that the Constitution itself must respect and never 
deny. In the debates preceding the enactment of 
the 1857 Constitution, a delegate sought to inject 
this doctrine of absolutism. His project was de- 
feated and Article 1 of that Constitution states 
clearly: “The rights of man are the basis and 
the object of social institutions.” 


Succeeding clauses of the Constitution place un- 
usual restrictions on the exercise of rights com- 
monly held to be inalienable. Of these, space 
permits no more than the mention of a few: 


“Bducation in all Government schools shall be 
laical.’” “Education in all primary schools, Gov- 
ernment or private, shall be laical.””’ The great 
mass of the population being illiterate, this con- 
demns the nation to an education that is laical. 
The Diocesan Seminary of Durango, devoted to 
the training of priests, was closed on the grounds 


29 


that it was a primary school and imparted an edu- 
cation that is not laical. 


In subsequent laws and decrees, the term 
“laical” is defined as excluding all religion and all 
direct or indirect teaching of religion, symbols or 
images at all suggestive of religion are forbidden 
on the school premises, and no primary school 
may be conducted on premises where there is a 
chapel or which have direct access to a church. 
“No religious corporation or any minister of any 
church may establish or direct any primary 
school.’”’ 


Education Used To Uproot Religion 


Education is generally accepted as a function 
which churches may legitimately exercise and 
which they have exercised for the benefit of so- 
ciety. In its general report for 1924 the Meth- 
odist Board of Education states: ‘Without the 
schools, the Negro churches would be without 
leaders and helpless. * * * Those who know 
foreign missions as they are read with a thrill the 
long, long list of schools, colleges and universi- 
ties. The church has made the school its method.” 


An examination of the textbooks and of the 
policies adopted by the Mexican Department of 
Education justifies the suspicion that education 
is being made the instrument by which religion 
is to be uprooted in Mexico. 


Liberty of Expression: The Press. Article 7— 
“The liberty to write and to publish articles on 
whatever subject may not be violated.” 


Prior censorship is prohibited, and the liberty 
of the press is limited only to respect for private 
life and for public morals and peace. But. 

Article 130—“Periodical publications whose 

30 


character is shown to be confessional by their 
programs, by their name, or merely by their us- 
ual tendencies, may not comment on questions 
of national politics, nor refer in their news items 
to the acts of the public authorities, nor to those 
of private parties who are associated with the 
functioning of public institutions.” 


The decree of July 31, 1926, was at once chal- 
lenged as a violation of the Constitution because, 
in its article 13, the word ‘‘confessional” used in 
the Constitution is omitted and the prohibitions 
of article 130 are made enforceable against the 
secular press. 


Speech: Article 6—“The expression of ideas 
shall be subject to no judicial or administrative 
inquiry excepting when it offends against moral- 
ity, injures the rights of a third party or disturbs 
the public order.” 


But, article 130—“‘At no time, either at a pub- 
lic gathering or at a board meeting privately 
held, nor in any act of worship or of religious 
propaganda, shall the minister of any cult discuss 
the fundamental laws of the country, or the public 
authorities specifically or generally.” 


And, article 8 of the decree of July 31, 1926— 
“Any individual, exercising the ministry of any 
religious cult, who, by means of his writings, his 
preachings or his sermons, shall publicly encour- 
age his readers or his hearers to disrespect the 
political institutions or to disobey the laws or the 
orders of the authorities, shall be subject to im- 
prisonment for six years and to a fine of the sec- 
ond class.” 


Equality Before the Law—Ministers are denied 
equality before the law with respect to the ex- 
ercise of their professions, which is subject to a 
long list of specific restrictions; to their educa- 


ol 


tion for which they may not be given credit in ob- 
taining academic degrees, to the exercise of the 
franchise, to the right to hold and acquire prop- 
erty. 


Churches Are Forbidden to Hold Or Administer 
Real Property 


And, finally, trial by jury is denied to any one, ’ 
lay or clergy, charged with an offense against 
article 130 of the Constitution or laws and de- 
crees enacted under its authority. This has been 
interpreted as denying the right to institute Am- 
paro proceedings, and a great many offenders 
have been condemned to banishment and even to 
death by summary proceedings and executed in 
violation of articles 13, 20, 21, 22 and 23 of the 
Constitution. 


Church and State—The Constitution of 1917 
provides: ‘Religious associations known as 
churches have no personality whatever under the 
law.” 


“In matters of religious worship and external 
discipline, the Federal Government shall have ex- 
clusive intervention, under the laws. All other 
authorities shall act, as agents, subordinate to the 
federation.” 


This jurisdiction is subject to two checks: (a) 
“The Congress shall enact no law establishing or 
forbidding any religion.” (b) “The State Legis- 
lature shall have exclusive power to fix the maxi- 
mum number of ministers who may function in 
the state, giving consideration to local necessities.” 


To make more absolute and inescapable this 
dependency, the Constitution further provides, in 
article 27: Churches have no legal capacity to 


32 


acquire, hold or administer, real property or capi- 
tal investments based on real property. 


Not only are churches thus denied capacity to 
own places of worship, but “all diocesan proper- 
ties, parish houses, seminaries, houses of refuge 
and schools conducted by religious associations, 
convents, or any other edifice constructed for or 
dedicated to the administration, propaganda, or 
teaching of any religious creed shall pass in fee 
simple to the nation to be used exclusively in the 
public service.” Even private institutions of ben- 
evolence, research, education, or mutual aid, are 
subject to severe restrictions. 


By these constitutional enactments, churches 
are denied the right to petition the Mexican Con- 
gress or the State Legislature, or to appeal to the 
courts for redress of wrongs or protection against 
oppression. Churches are reduced to the status 
of a ward and to complete dependency upon the 
state, and are deprived of all means of controll- 
ing their own ministers. No church can exist in 
Mexico except by executive clemency. 


These provisions of the 1917 Constitution are 
a repudiation of the traditions of Mexico and an 
open violation of the Constitution of 1857. The 
traditions of the Spanish colonies in this matter 
are authoritatively stated in the case on Ponce Vs. 
Roman Catholic Church, 210, U. S. Reports. p. 
296. The opinion of the Supreme Court of the 
United States was delivered by Chief Justice Ful- 
ler and contains the following: 


“The Spanish law as to the juristic capacity of 
the Church at the time of the cession (Treaty of 
Paris) merely followed the principles of the Ro- 
man law, which have had such universal accep- 
tance both in the law of Continental Europe and 
in the common law of England. * * 


33 


“By the Spanish law from the earliest moment 
of the settlement of the island to the present time, 
the corporate existence of the Catholic Church has 
been recognized.” 


This tradition is respected in the Mexican Con- 
stitution of 1857, which, in article 27, gives to ec- 
clesiastic corporations legal capacity to acquire 
property in or to administer by its own right real 
property “immediately and directly destined to 
the service and the purpose of said corporation.” 


Attempt Was Made to Reduce the Catholic 
Church to Subjection 


The so-called Reform Laws codified in the Act 
of Dec. 14, 1874, extend this legal capacity and 
provide in: 


Article 13—“Religious institutions are free to 
adopt hierarchical organization they prefer and, 
by doing so, establish the legal personality of the 
superiors of these organizations in each locality 
with capacity to exercise the rights stated in ar- 
ticle 15 hereunder.” 


Article 15—“Religious institutions acting 
through their local superiors shall have the 
right: 

““(a) to petition, 


“(b) to hold property in temples acquired in 
accordance with the Federa] Constitution and the 
laws of the state, 


“(c) to receive alms and gifts, 
““(d) to take up collections within the temple.” 


The national life of Mexico has never been 
wholly free from controversy respecting the rela- 


34 


tions between the civil and the religious author- 
ity. Reflecting conditions in Catholic Spain, Mex- 
ico began her life as a colony, with church and 
state working in complete harmony. The civil 
authority protected the church and her ministers 
and undertook to enact no legislation hostile to 
the church. In harmony with contemporaneous 
custom, all but the established church were ex- 
cluded. The ministers of the church undertook 
not alone to carry Christianity to the Indians. 


The encouragement and supervision of educa- 
tion was accepted by them as a function for which 
they were eminently equipped, and the church 
and school were inseparable in the missions. The 
ministers of the church, moreover, undertook im- 
portant civil commissions, especially in the outly- 
ing territories, and the Bishops were closely as- 
sociated with the Viceroys in the management of 
colonia] affairs. 


There was not always agreement. Juan de 
Zumarraga, in his Memorial to the Imperial Au- 
thorities of Spain, dated Aug. 29, 1529, established 
the church in the position of defender of the In- 
dian. At their second council, in 1565, the Bish- 
ops of Mexico deliberated on the situation of the 
Indian and submitted to the Crown a Memorial, 
setting forth the rights of Indians. At their third 
council, twenty years later, the Bishops again de- 
liberated on this question and condemned _ the 
tyranny to which the Indians were being sub- 
jected. 


The civil authorities resented this interfer- 
ence. For two centuries, the controversy contin- 
ued. The Bishops, with the exception of brief 
periods, were on the defensive. Through influ- 
ences at court, they prevented the unjust acts by 
which colonial administrators oppressed the In- 
dians and obtained for their own protection en- 


35 


actments setting certain checks and limitations on 
the power of the civil authorities. These checks, 
spoken of as “fueros,” and as privileges, could not 
perhaps all be justified if considered in the light 
of modern standards. Their value has been much 
exaggerated and their nature much distorted in 
the controversy between clericals and anti-cleri- 
cals in modern Mexico. They had, for the most 
part, been abolished by law before Mexico became 
an independent nation. 


In a manifesto, repudiated the sovereignty and 
the Constitution of Spain, the Mexican liberals, in 
1818, declared: 


“We profess and recognize no other religion 
than the Catholic and will not permit or tolerate 
the public or private exercise of any other. We 
hold that as a sovereign nation we have power to 
negotiate with the Supreme Pontiff at Rome a 
concordat for the Government in Mexico of the 
Roman, Catholic Apostolic Church.” 


All parties accepted the idea of an established 
church, but back of this acceptance was the 
thought of patronage. The power of the church 
had indeed been crippled; she had been stripped 
of much of her property by the law of Aug. 6, 
1811; the chief sources from which she had de- 
rived her property had been dried up by laws like 
that of Oct. 5, 1801. Nevertheless, these revolu- 
tionists coveted the right to control the appoint- 
ment of church dignitaries. The insincerity of 
their professions became apparent when, in power 
under Gomez Farias, in 1838, with all hope gone 
of even dominating the church through the ex- 
ercise of the appointing power, they proceeded 
to confiscate her properties. 


For thirty years, the conflict went on uninter- 
rupted. In 1847, taking advantage of the tur- 


~86 


moil resulting from the disastrous war with the 
United States, Gomez Farias, again in power as 
Vice President under Santa Ana, laid hands on 
church property. 


An attempt was made to embody in the Consti- 
tution of 1857 this principle, reducing the church 
to subjection under the state. This was repudi- 
ated by the people of Mexico and voted down in 
the convention. Benito Juarez, exercising the 
powers of a revolutionary dictatorship, legislated 
by decree against the liberties of the church. 


To strengthen his position, Juarez introduced 
missionaries of other creeds. To this end, and 
with much ostentation, he selected the oldest 
~ church in Mexico, San Francisco, venerated as the 
eradle of Catholicity by the Mexican people, and 
made it the headquarters of a Protestant mission. 
Juarez sought support from the United States and, 
to this end, negotiated the MacLane-Ocampo 
Treaty, the ratification of which failed largely 
because of the slavery controversy and the war. 
The French protectorate came as a reaction 
against the acts of Juarez. The protectorate was 
overthrown. 


In 1874, an attempt was made to bring the 
Constitution of 1857 down to date by codifying 
the amendments that had been enacted. The so- 
called Reform Law of 1874 began with the fol- 
lowing: 

Article 1—‘“‘The state and the church shall be 
independent one from the other. No law shall 
‘be enacted establishing or forbidding any re- 
ligion.”’ 


Came the benevolent dictatorship of Porfirio 
Diaz. Under it, the church lived by executive 
clemency, regaining none of her rights, recover- 


37 


ing none of her properties. Under pretext of re- 
storing the Reform laws by which church and 
state are separated the revolutionists at Queretaro 
enacted a statute under which the church can 
live only by placing herself in the most intimate 
union with the most abject subjection to the state. 


Throughout the turmoil and dissension which 
has characterized the life of Mexico, the national 
spirit has been striving to express itself in greater 
liberty for the people and in more effective par- 
ticipation by the people in their Government. 


Revolutionists have both capitalized and de- 
feated these legitimate aspirations, not because 
they have had popular support but because they 
have had armed power. 


Gen. Calles and the revolutionists see in the 
Catholic Church a challenge to their absolutism, 
because the church teaches the responsibility of 
the state to the higher authority of God and of 
man’s God-given rights. 


Those who oppose Calles are not fighting for 
privileges, nor even solely for the restoration of 
religious liberty. They are fighting for their 
rights as free men to equality before the law, and 
to equal participation in the government of their 
country. So true is this, that even if there were 
effected a reconciliation between Calles and the 
authorities of the Catholic Church, the revolu- 
tion, the demand of the ‘‘outs” for recognition 
would still go on. The issue in Mexico to-day 
lies between absolutism and liberty. There 
should be no question as to where, as a nation, 
we stand on that issue. 


To fail to understand this is to fail to under- 
stand the vital issues in Mexico to-day. Ameri- 


38 


ean liberals have been silent. A few have even 
expressed sympathy with the Mexican Govern- 
ment’s denial of fundamental] liberties. Assum- 
ing, without investigation, that this denial is a 
justifiable retaliation on the Mexican clergy, they 
are blind to the real problem and to the real is- 
sues, and put themselves in the absurd position 
of defending processes that absolutely contradict 
their own principles. It is-indeed encouraging to 
note in liberal publications like the New Repub- 
lie evidences of clearer vision on the part of 
American liberals. 


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